About Ashaari Rahmat

I studied Urban and Regional Planning in university. For the time being, am working as a Programme Officer for a Malaysian based NGO that focuses primarily on medical relief both locally and internationally (but I don't go down to the field during emergencies, I focus on Disaster Risk Reduction and preparedness, i.e. ideally before disasters). Have also been involved with several local NGO / CSOs that do things ranging from environmental awareness for children, to civil rights and faith-based charity groups.

Came across Permaculture from a good friend who went to an intro course in 2010. Immediately got hooked with the philosophy behind it - resonates with how I look at the world (and how I plan to move through it). So, I looked around for more information and people to talk to about Permaculture, especially in Malaysia (because one needs to start from home, no?) - and, fortunately, met up with with a few practitioners and enthusiasts, among which was Giovanni Galluzzo, whom I became very good friends with. Giovanni organised a PDC course which I had attended, taught by Mustafa Fatih Bakir from the Permaculture Research Institute of Turkey. I must say this was one of the most significant moments of whatever life I've led thus far.

Since hearing about Permaculture, a few friends and I got very enthusiastic and without knowing much at all, tried to do our own demo site / food forest project on a relatives land outside the city. Needless to say, it didn't work out - we made a few type one errors and scratched our heads wondering why things didn't work. This was in 2011. Thankfully the PDC clarified all this for us (very good lesson learned here). So now, I plan to continue the demonstation site, support other initiatives on Permaculture in and around KL, as well as personally go deeper down the rabbit hole with this - hoping to meet other wayfarers along the way as well.